Tsiu Marpo is a red-bodied warrior deity of the btsan class, depicted in armour of leather and copper, riding a black-maned horse and brandishing a red lance and snare, at the head of his band of seven riders (rol pa skya bdun). He was bound by oath as a Buddhist protector and became the special guardian of Samye monastery (founded c. 779 CE), where his shrine and oracle were maintained; Christopher Bell's study traces how he became firmly established as Samye's chief protector by the seventeenth century, in a role earlier associated with Pehar Gyalpo, who according to tradition departed Samye and was eventually installed at Nechung. Tsiu Marpo's cult spread with Samye's prestige, and his oracle was consulted alongside the other great protector oracles of central Tibet.